Close Encounters of the Celebrity Kind...
Highlights of a Life on Film with Frances Sternhagen
Expanded Edition of 11-22-07 Windy City Times Interview*
by Richard Knight, Jr.
Three Faces of Frances: Sternhagen glowing, terrified after stepping outside during the midst of Stephen King's The Mist, with the
author and his partner, relatives of Sternhagen by marriage backstage after another hilarious Sternhagen performance of "Steel
Magnolias" on Broadway in 2005
My brother-in-law’s mother is actress Frances Sternhagen and for years it’s been fun to watch the recognition from friends when they
don’t quite know the name but suddenly light up when they remember one of her TV indelible roles.  She played Cliff’s mom on
“Cheers,” Kyle MacLachlan’s possessive mother Bunny MacDougal on “Sex & the City” and is now mother Kyra Sedgwick’s mother on
“The Closer.”  The two-time Tony winner and stage veteran (this year marks 55 years on the stage) is also an accomplished
television and screen actress.  Her real movie debut in 1967’s
Up the Down Staircase, just out on DVD, as the frustrated school
librarian is brief but memorable.  She’s had great roles in the little seen but fascinating
Fedora, Outland, Starting Over, Misery, Raising
Cain
, and The Laramie Project, among others.  Now Sternhagen (who is called “Frannie” by family and friends) has a large supporting
role in
The Mist, a horror movie.  We recently chatted about that, her part on “Sex & the City” and the filming of The Laramie Project,
the play and HBO movie that examined the emotional impact of the murder of gay hero Matthew Shepard on the townspeople where
he was killed.  Highlights from our conversation:

WINDY CITY TIMES (WCT):  
The Laramie Project was obviously something that was very, very special.  Can you talk about your
involvement with it?

FRANCES STERNHAGEN (FS):  Yes, Moisés Kaufman was so attentive and careful about how to portray people’s prejudice without
making them look ridiculous or point it up.  What he wanted to do and what I think he succeeded in doing was showing how these
really ordinary and loving people – people who had no idea that they had any prejudice – were unaware as to how this could
happen.  Of course, it happened and these students came around and in the beginning, I think, the community didn’t know how to
deal with these kids and the kids were, I thought, really wonderfully sympathetic.  So, because of that people began to open up and
the result is a very touching film.

WCT:  Was it shot in Laramie, Wyoming?

FS:  Yes.

WCT:  I grew up 200 miles from there in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

FS:  That’s right.

WCT:  I went through my high school years there and I remember the very conservative attitudes, the “outsider” mentality.  That
suspicious, “where are you from?” kind of thing.  So I’m wondering, when you came in with a film crew to work on such touchy
material, how was the town?

FS:  They were all very supportive.

WCT:  And at that point they’d already done the play so they were maybe prepared for what was going to happen, right?

FS:  That’s right but I have to tell you, the scene in the courtroom had a lot of people from the area in it and, God, that scene was
so moving.  Oh gosh.

WCT:  It’s hard to know what to ask about this because I sense that it must have been an emotionally draining project all around.

FS:  Yes.  I met through one of these students the woman who I played because she’d warmed up to these students.  She was the
mother of the sheriff of the woman (played by Amy Madigan) who had to be in quarantine because she had handled without gloves
the boy who had HIV.  They discovered this after they had taken him down from where he’d been tied up in that hill.  She made
herself vulnerable and had to be quarantined and I played her mother.  So this young student, one of the young actors who had
originally gone there with Moisés, introduced me to the mother and we all had dinner together – the mother and her close friend or
her cousin and the daughter.  It was really quite touching.

WCT:  Having worked and lived in an urban/liberal environment for so many years, wasn’t that just mind blowing that those attitudes
existed?

FS:  Well, yes, but I think it would have been a lot more mind blowing if they all had not been prepared by these students a couple
of years before – whenever the play came out.  Coming from New York your first tendency is to play the stereotype.  When the actor
playing the student who first comes to interview me Moisés had to bring me there – having much more of a kind of prejudice against
the boy and against being asked any questions.  My tendency was to be more sympathetic and Moisés wanted to show that in the
beginning these people were not that welcoming.

WCT:  As they would not be.

FS:  No, no!  Exactly and it took a long time for this woman that I was playing to warm up to the point toward the end of the movie
where she was telling the boy about what had happened to her daughter.

WCT:  Did you feel that the people there had also made that emotional journey?

FS:  Yes.  Definitely.

WCT:  That’s good to know that some tolerance got through.  Boy, that’s a really powerful piece.  Hard to watch.

FS:  I know, I’m getting choked up just thinking about it.

WCT:  Okay, so we’re going to move to something a bit lighter.

FS: (brightens)  Okay, I’m ready.

WCT:  “Sex in the City” – you’ve done so many series – “Cheers,” “ER,” now you’re on “The Closer” but you’ve said that you’ve
never had as much recognition as you have for playing Bunny MacDougal.

FS:  It was such a breakthrough or an eye opener for me about how the right character at the right time can really have such an
impact.  I’m very curious as to how the movie is going to go.  Of course, I’m not in the movie but the four girls are.  With all the
DVDs out I almost have a feeling of, “Isn’t that enough?” (laughs).

WCT:  I had a chance to talk with
Kyle MacLachlan who played your son in the series a few years back and he had nice things to say
about you

FS:  Oh, he’s such a nice guy, such a lovely guy.  Isn’t it too bad that we can’t be in the movie just for one scene? (laughs)  It’s such
a memorable relationship.  And Sarah Jessica is lovely, by the way and she’s smart.  I didn’t have much to do with her in the series
unfortunately.

WCT:  Well, maybe they’ll put Bunny in a sequel if it gets that far.  Okay, now let’s talk about
Stephen King’s The Mist.

FS:  I’m curious to see it because when I read it I thought, “Well this is nothing I’m going to pay to see.”  It’s so full of horror and
spooky things and not anything I’d go to see! (laughs)  It’s so funny, my neighbors who are in their 80s are so excited and keep
saying to me, “Oh, Frannie, when is it coming out!?” and I keep saying, “You’re not going to want to see it.” (laughs)  They’re going
to spend the entire time with their eyes closed.  Just because I think it’s amazing what they can do and did do with the green screen
and these hideous creatures that they made up on the second floor of the studio in Shreveport where we shot.

WCT:  I’m a little nervous for that reason.

FS:  Me too.  I don’t see scary movies.  I do not see them but here I am in one.  Well I did it because, number one, I needed the
Screen Actor’s Guild health insurance and the other was that Frank Darabont the director did these two wonderful movies and my
agent said, “Well, he’s a fan of yours.  He liked Starting Over” and I said, “Well, okay.”  When I got there, unfortunately, the two
things that I was supposed to do with that darling little boy, Nathan Gamble who was in Babel got taken away.  Well…they took away
my first two rescues (laughs).  For one thing, the centipede was too big.  They couldn’t make it and have it work and the other
rescue I was supposed to do also got taken away.  They had Thomas Jane not get attacked by this particular bug that I was
supposed to get off him.  So, the only thing I really do is a spider in the pharmacy.  We go over there to get some medication for
the people who have been attacked in the super market.  I felt bad because there was nothing leading up to my killing the spider
and also when Nathan said, “You’re my favorite because you rescue me” I actually no longer did so how could I still be his favorite?
(laughs)  I went up to the take a look at the creatures and marveled at how well they were made.

WCT:  So are you going to see it?

FS:  Oh, yeah, I’ll have to see it – just to see how it turns out.

WCT:  You can always cover your eyes.

FS:  Oh, I’ll be covering my eyes a lot!

WCT:  What’s next for you Frannie?

FS:  Well, there are two back to back episodes of “The Closer” on December 3rd which is fun and this is a good double episode
about Christmas.  It’s quite interesting because it’s funny but it’s also at time very touching and then in February I’m going to India
for two weeks and then, we’ll see.
*A much more in-depth version of this interview is forthcoming.  In it Sternhagen discusses her roles in Up the Down Staircase,
Fedora, Outland, Misery, Raising Cain, more on The Laramie Project and The Mist.  Stay tuned!